We get model homes ready for buyers

Our cleaning starts at the front door

A buyer starts forming an opinion of a model home on the walk up, so that is where we start too. We sweep the porch and wipe the front door and the glass beside it, inside and out, before we clean a single room. The door handle is the first thing every buyer touches, and the entry floor is the first thing they stand on. In her years in builder sales, Candee watched buyers decide how they felt about a house before they ever reached the kitchen.

Inside, we work from the top of each room down. Ceiling fans and light fixtures get dusted first, because whatever is up there ends up on the floor. Counters and sinks come next, then mirrors and glass. Floors are last. The vacuum goes along the baseboards and under the staged furniture, because buyers look down more than most people expect. We move through the house in the same order the sales agent walks a buyer on the tour.

Skip that order and you dust a fan onto a floor you already vacuumed. Skip the entry and the first tile a buyer steps on has grit on it. These sound like small things. But a buyer will spot dust on a stair rail long before they notice the upgraded cabinets. A model that looks neglected makes buyers wonder about the rest of the community. The home has to look cared for on every day it is open.

• Porch swept and front door glass wiped
• Fans and light fixtures dusted before floors
• Hand prints wiped off stainless and glass
• Floors vacuumed around and under the staging
• Sales center office and restroom cleaned

The sales center gets cleaned too

The sales center is where a buyer sits down to pick a lot and sign a contract. It gets harder use than the model. The front door opens all day and the coffee station drips. Kids put their hands on every display they can reach. We clean it with the same care as the model home. Desks and the tables where buyers sit get wiped down, and the restroom gets the same full clean as a bathroom in the model.

When the sales center holds the design samples, those need attention too. Flooring boards, cabinet door fronts, countertop squares and tile are the builder's upgrades in a buyer's hands. A quartz sample with a coffee ring on it, or a carpet board full of grit, makes an upgrade harder to sell. We wipe down what can be wiped and vacuum the carpet boards. Then everything goes back where the sales team keeps it, so an agent never has to hunt for a sample in front of a buyer.

Kaili spent four years in purchasing for home builders, on the side of the business that keeps new home communities running. We both know how a sales agent's day goes. There is no time to clean between appointments, and nobody wants to be wiping a counter when a buyer walks in. Buyers notice a dirty restroom before a long meeting, and they notice a streaky glass door right behind the agent's desk. Those are the details we watch for.

Construction dust and pollen get into models

A model home usually sits in a community that is still being built. The lots around it are being framed and drywalled, and the ground between them is bare red clay. That clay gets tracked in on every pair of shoes. On dry, windy days a fine dust from the building sites settles on window sills and porch furniture. After a summer storm, the same clay turns to mud and ends up on the entry floor and the rug by the door. We mop the entry again on the way out, since our own shoes cross it too.

Spring brings the pine pollen. For a few weeks around Fort Mill, a yellow film coats everything outdoors. It covers the porch floor, the rocking chairs, the front windows and the cars in the lot. Pollen blows inside each time the door opens and collects as a yellow line along the entry baseboards. During those weeks a porch can look neglected a couple of days after it was swept. So the outside of a model gets as much attention from us as the rooms inside.

Summer adds bugs. The heat and humidity here bring wasps under porch ceilings and spiders into the corners of covered entries. Inside, dead insects pile up on the window sills. We knock down webs every time we clean. If we find a wasp nest, we tell the sales team. A web across the front door frame is the first thing a buyer walks under. It looks like nobody checks on the house.

New finishes show every cleaning mistake

Most new homes going up around Fort Mill and Tega Cay are wood frame, often two stories tall. Many have brick or stone on the front and siding on the rest. Inside, a model usually has vinyl plank floors downstairs, carpet upstairs, painted cabinets and quartz or granite counters. All of it is brand new, and new finishes show mistakes. The wrong floor cleaner leaves a dull haze on vinyl plank that shows when sun comes through the windows. Too much water can work down into the seams between the planks.

Walls in a new home are usually painted in a flat or low shine finish, and that paint marks easily. A shoulder brushing the stairwell wall leaves a gray line. Scrub that line hard and the paint polishes up into a shiny patch that looks worse than the mark did. So we clean walls gently. Anything that really needs a touch up gets pointed out to the sales team. Paint repairs are up to the builder.

Stainless appliances and glass take the most hand prints, since buyers open the fridge and the oven in nearly every model. We wipe stainless with the grain so it dries without streaks. Quartz and granite get a mild cleaner, because harsh chemicals can dull the surface over time. None of this is complicated. It has to be done the same careful way every visit. The model is how a builder shows buyers what they are paying for.